Sunday, 31 July 2011

Here's yet another bunch of lovable Japanese lunatics.. It's the 2001 reissue of Melt Banana's first album from '94, 'Speak Squeak Creak'. Re-released on the band's own A-Zap Records. Bite sized technicolour sugar lumps of fragmented sonic shrapnel! Brought over to the States by KK Null of Zeni Geva and captured mid-freakout by Steve Albini down in the basement somewhere in Chicago.. Holy fuck Meltman! This is some bare bones Banana shit! Especially compared to their later releases.. It sounds like the band are manically disassembling their songs with a crazed surgical precision.. Then excitedly re-stitching the isolated phrases back together to highlight whichever segment caught their attention the longest! Caught with clarity, like the previous album posted by the Boredoms.. This one sounds like a live in the room job, with minimal overdubs or studio trickery etc.. In fact, just for a quick clumsy comparison.. This sounds a bit like listening to a Boredoms album with your finger on the fast-forward button! But this time round, you get Albini's customary crystal clear approach to production. Every instrument is perfectly balanced in the mix.. Also, like Yamatsuka Eye.. YaKo, with her rabid chipmunk-like delivery, is definitely an irrepressibly unique vocalist.. But seriously folks, lazy comparisons aside, Melt Banana always had their own sound.. Still do! But particularly back then, I mean who the fuck else sounded like this in '94? Oh yeah, the head-frying bonus track is all 24 other tracks playing at once.. Have fun!

Saturday, 30 July 2011

Whatever you do, don't try too hard to work out what's going to happen next! At least not when you're blasting this brain boggling beauty for the first time! It's Japan's legendary nutbar deconstructionists: Boredoms! Here's their 1993 full length 'Wow 2', released jointly by Avant and Disk Union Records. This album was recorded live in the studio in NYC during a break in their US tour (before heading out with Nirvana and then Brutal Truth!).. Don't let that 'L' word put you off, this is crisply captured stuff! The clarity of the recording gives the tracks a general feeling of unfettered looseness and does nothing to diminish their essential immediacy.. It sounds like the majority of the songs could well have been improvised in the studio.. Except for the fact the band just sounds so freakishly welded together at all times. Whether they're stopping dead as a doornail all of a sudden.. Or accelerating with joyous abandon into cartoonish explosions of musical mayhem.. Which naturally means plenty of squeaky toys and honking sax noodles in the background! Of course on top of it all there's Yamatsuka Eye's (as he was called then) singular vocals.. Twitchy screeching, unhinged gibbering.. Never far away from another hooting mumble-shriek! Driving the rest of the band along with the jerkily infectious insanity of it all.. Never gaining too much momentum, as they're far too busy crashing straight into one brightly painted brick wall after another! Ah well, it passes the time..

Tuesday, 26 July 2011

Let's give your mind and ears another manic mauling shall we? M'kay. Here's an all Japanese exchange of extremity.. It's the Jellyroll Rockheads / Exclaim split EP released on 625 Thrashcore Records in 2001. Those rockin' jellyheads in JR hit us first with their unique combination of garage rockin' Ramones-esque bop and utterly unhinged speedcore. You'll be tapping your toes to a tuneful ditty one minute.. The next, they'll be whipping themselves up into a screaming hyperactive tantrum.. Worthy of an overly entitled toddler with a chronic coke problem! Exclaim on the flipside of the frisbee could seemingly be dismissed as a wall of screaming noise.. You should know better by now! Not round these parts.. Coming across like a deranged fastcore band rapidly approaching a crasher crust styled sense of noise destruction! Served up with a reckless 'fuck it, let it rip dude' approach to the distort-o-rama production.. For a further novelty, each band plays a cover of the other (with a little lyrical re-writing). Which serves only to further highlight the basic similarities present in both bands' approaches. Big deal. Another win / win situation from the land of the rising hum!

Here's a real quick one for ya! Capitalist Casualties' bite-sized follow up to the phenomenal 'Subdivisions In Ruin' LP.. It's the 'Planned Community' 6" EP released by Six Weeks Records back in 2000.. This is some lean 'n' mean stripped down fast hardcore. Comin' at ya like a snarling, cracked up whippet! Three tracks that feasibly demonstrate a band at the intuitive apex (to me!) of their most satisfyingly creative yet musically reductive period. Before they came back to more familiar ground by again adding a considered complexity to their abrasive output. All part of an ongoing bid to maintain their by now trademark near-overkill levels of impact. Showcasing their casual stripped-down mastery of the fast hardcore form.. By structuring their successive tempo changes so as to unlock the maximum amount of intensity from the arrangements.. Which conversely consist of the bare minimum number of parts necessary to knock ya block off! Lyrically articulating the hope-smothering homogeneity and inherent isolation of suburban small towns and their increasingly dispossessed and desperate denizens. Enunciating the ennui engendered by a mind numbingly repetitive and drearily meaningless daily existence.. Giving voice to those hidden faces, howling with anguish and despair.. Cast down and cowering behind the gilded artificial facades.. Constructed to divert attention away from the various hollow mockeries that comprise the american dream.. This is the soundtrack to life and death in a plastic suburban hell..

Sunday, 24 July 2011

Well I went back to the local record fair at the end of last month and what do you know? This little beauty was still there waiting for me to swoop! We've had their first single, so here's the debut LP from Raven as well.. 1981's 'Rock Until You Drop' on the legendary Neat Records! Now, not all of the eleven songs are quite as turbo charged as 'Don't Want Your Money'.. But don't sweat, it's still non-stop rockin' from start to finish! In fact the opening salvo 'Hard Ride' has a swaggeringly solid AC/DCish swing to it and along with the next tune, 'Hell Patrol' sets the pace and tone for the rest of the album. Their 70's influences are a bit more apparent here, but they still packed plenty of steel in with their NWOBHM style riffage too.. Song titles like, 'Over The Top', 'Lambs To The Slaughter' and the title track should give you some idea of where this headbanging Geordie trio were coming from! Anyway.. Less of the babble, more of the Metal!!

Let's slow things right down to a smacked out snail-like pace.. The 1998 full length by Grief, 'Torso' released by the aptly named Pessimiser Records. Seven severely drawn out tracks, spread out over an hour should slowly strangle any remaining vestiges of hope.. 60 minutes of desperate crushing despair. I used to listen to this record every night when I came home from my crappy job about ten years ago and it always just depressed the shit out of me even further.. Hmm, not sure how much that helped in the long run! To be honest, it's hard to even drag any descriptions out of my brain when I try and think hard about this album.. It just makes me want to curl up into a shrieking ball on the floor.. Slow motion grinding horror sludge? Caution! Listening to this album too much might make you start to look like the guy in the picture up there.. You have been warned!

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Another doomy little gem to darken your day, courtesy once again of Man's Ruin Records.. The Electric Wizard / Orange Goblin split hit the fanatics back in 1997. The Wizard start us off subtly, with the sound of someone inhaling a bucket! They then proceed to cough out an epic tribute to time travel in two movements.. The first half is firmly in the classic early 'Leccy Wizard mould.. Downtuned to a comfortably numbing frequency and excavating all the doomier than thou riffage you could possibly desire.. Somewhere towards the end of the sixth minute those blotters audibly kick in and things shift gears into Phase II.. Taking a much mellower approach and jamming out ten minutes of lysergically loose space rock. Finally collapsing into delicate washes of fragile sounding wah-wah and distant vocal echoes.. Cosmic! Orange Goblin next with more of a 'traditional' stoner rock sound going on.. Dishing out one original song and a Sabbath cover. Straight forward, head-nodding chug-a-lug rock on the first track with a good 'tight but loose' feel to the jams. Then it's a decent enough cover of 'Hand Of Doom' but unsurprisingly, it's not like it blows the original away or anything! The Wizard wins this one with ease!

Sunday, 17 July 2011

A scar-tissue covered knuckle sandwich of vitriolic face-flattening grooves next.. From LA's chroniclers of the depressing chaos that is daily life: -(16)-.. Here's their '97 'Blaze Of Incompetence' full length released on the label that always liked to deliver the dismal goods: Pessimiser Records! Taking their initial Helmet and Fudge Tunnel inspirations (the disc was produced by Alex Newport).. Then shoving them through the meatgrinding influence of innumerable sludge and hardcore bands.. Being able to dip into a mixed bag of inspirations always helps and this means the 11 tunes rarely drag.. In fact there's not many trudging doom riffs at all on display on this 'un.. These dudes are more inclined to jam out prolonged sections of dissonant guitar patterns, underpinned by heavy rolling bass riffs.. Far closer to noise rockin' methods than anything else.. First hand observations from the dejected frontline of manifold personal failures form the basis for the unsentimental synonyms that are the lyrics.. Simultaneously regretful and resentful, they never fail to convey the befuddled sense of futility that strikes us all at one low time or another.. Legendary in some circles (i.e. my house!) for their revolving door policy of members passing through (and sometimes clean away!).. Take your pick from a selection of disappearances, OD's, rehab and general burned out apathy.. So, self medication as a pseudo salvationary approximation of a silver lining? Why not..

Saturday, 16 July 2011

You're travelling into outer space whether you like it or not, feeble humanoids! Courtesy of Japan's foremost and most forcible cosmic brain-transplant specialists: High Rise! Just to prove that their speaker shredding shenanigans were no studio constructed sneakery.. They released this massively blown out barnstormer of a live record back in '99.. My benumbed brain has been slowly liquefying and bleeding out my eardrums in gratitude ever since! This truly titanic power trio sound like a screaming psychedelic crack baby monster.. The bastard mutant spawn of early Blue Cheer and the MC5. Abandoned in late 70's Tokyo's neon gutters, left to suck up the slop of the punk, noise and free jazz scenes for sustenance.. Shitting out technicolour streams of oblique information like an LSD excreting leviathan on a universe levelling rampage! Taking the towering wall of amps and simplistic sonic bonecrushing of the former.. Mixed with the free jazz inspirations and guitar explorations of the latter. Inspiring them to new heights of highly illogical yet always entertainingly visceral conclusions. Bassist / vocalist Asahito Nanjo has been playing in numerous groups since the late seventies.. Starting up High Rise in '82 with the main man of guitar mangling Munehiro Narita.. Initially as Psychedelic Speed Freaks, but they ended up using that as the title of their first LP in '84 and changed over to their more urbane, urban inspired moniker. This was recorded live in Paris, November '98 and released on Fractal Records. Eight tracks of ear shattering enlightenment await.. Ya shouldn't need to turn this one up much.. (Hint: it's LOUD!)

One of the many fine split cd's Man's Ruin Records left us with was the Acid King / Altamont release.. Which back in '97 helpfully compiled each bands 10" EP for a double dipped helping of psyched out heavy doom rock.. Acid King kick us off with three behemoths of bottom heavy rumbling grooves.. The first two songs are catchy and strangely almost upbeat, with their driving, rocking tempos! Topped off by Lori's forceful yet hypnotic vocals, complimenting the similarly trance inducing low end rhythms of her guitars with just a hint of a mocking sneer here and there.. This build up of velocity provides the impetus for the third track which blasts off into a thirteen minute instrumental orbit of subsonic explorations.. Altamont next, they were a side project of Melvins drummer Dale Crover (with the rhythm section of Acid King in tow). On their five sonic slices, sandwiched between atmospheric weird noise passages, they have some heavy 70's influences chanelled through the mangled mind of a maniacal Melvin.. Be it plentiful helpings of downtuned boogie style riffing.. Or the Mountain-esque keyboards providing the necessary rainbow coloured noodles in the background.. They're also happy enough to relax into a psychedelic abstraction whenever the fancy takes them (which is often!). Always with a sense of ongoing movement in the jams.. Developing them slowly, or all of a sudden on a whim, into the next section.. Wow. It's like a journey or something (man)..

Friday, 15 July 2011

Go on then, have a split of this.. North Carolina's grimly grime-infused sludge slinging maestros Seven Foot Spleen with a long 'un and a short 'un.. Displaying both sides of their vaguely frostbitten buzzsaw stomp attack.. The early shit by these guys sounded amazing, with the tinny, beyond fuzzed-out guitars (3 six string axe wielders at one point!).. Like sickening waves of sludge pulsing through a filter of blackened grinding metal! A real shame how it all turned out.. As I had high hopes for these guys back then (along with early Cattlepress). They seemed to have their fingers on the pulses of the crucial scenes (powerviolence, sludge, grind, black and death metal) and appeared to be on the verge of pulling some next level nuggets of shit out of their arses.. If they hadn't cleaned up their sound so much for the LP (or had it cleaned up for them?) maybe they wouldn't have subsequently disappeared (seemingly) without a trace.. That pretty much goes for the once mighty 'Press as well unfortunately, a bit harsh maybe.. As both bands LP's are good but have the common faintly disappointing feel of an opportunity missed.. That said, this version of 'Without Thumbs' blatantly blows clouds of smoke in the album versions face, no doubt about it.. Anyways.. Paired off against 'em we've got Southern Australia's Gacy's Place. With their blend of pissed off hardcore and speedy powerviolence type blast parts.. These guys understandably stayed pretty low profile, I think they did another 7" on the same label and some comp tracks? Nothing jaw dropping here, but it is relentlessly ugly hate inspired hardcore, so that'll do (for now).. Oh yeh, this came out on Spiral Objective Records, sometime round 1997-98..

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

A 'fan club' vinyl press of Infest's legendary demo tape from 1987 with a few bonus rehearsal nuggets appeared in the racks some time in the early '00's.. Released by persons unknown somewhere in Europe (probably Germany).. Again we have scratched out matrix numbers and plain white labels to obscure the trail.. But anyway, we should just be grateful the shadowy elite went to all that trouble! Twenty five tracks of manically intense fast hardcore presented in all its raw, glorious splendour.. Out, about 'n' on the loose and always liable to headbutt you indiscriminately to the floor for no good reason at all.. Personally, I think I actually prefer these versions over their more polished studio counterparts.. Coz the band's sounding way more relaxed and playful here.. In a rabidly explosive sort of way! The ragged sound of the recording gives an essential garagey, trebled out edge to the guitars.. Yet this doesn't detract from the sheer energy generated by the reckless abandon of the rockin' sections and fist pumping breakdowns.. Interestingly, for reasons best known to the bootleggers fans who pressed this up (and seemingly no-one else!).. The last song (named 'Outro' here) is actually a Melvins track ('Echo') from their 'Gluey Porch Treatments' LP! Bizarrely enough it's not that it actually sounds out of place here or anything (it certainly had me fooled up until not so long ago!).. Seeing as how a barely noticeable change in sound quality is the only real clue to the listener unfamiliar with that particular LP.. Oh, and not forgetting to mention the track in question is only 26 seconds long! So the question is quite simply: why? What is their underlying motivation for the wilful misinformation that hangs there like a veil of deception? Anyone still awake? Well, maybe they just wanted to fuck with the heads of the idiots and create further confusion, yeh? They might have been trying to pass it off as a rare 'unreleased' track they'd obtained and included in a bid to boost their 'hardcore scene points'? Or maybe, it was a sly comment on the type of sneeringly elitist attitude that was being engendered by an obsession with 'scene points', 'authenticity' and 'obscurity'? Making it an irresistible opportunity to tweak the noses of those braggarts and swaggerers endowed with that mindset? Doubt it, but hey, ya never know...

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Another classic compilation here... The 11 track 1991 'Projections Of A Stained Mind' LP on CBR (Chicken Brain Records) from Sweden. There's a ripping pre 'Clandestine' version of 'Forsaken' by Entombed to start things off.. Then it's 'Carnage' one of the very few studio tracks Mayhem recorded with Dead on vox. Primitive pre At The Gates shenanigans next with Grotesque.. Hear Therion rumble and blast away with the (surprising?) brutality they revelled in before they lost the plot and went all gothical like innit? House Of Usher are the first of the lesser known (to me) bands, but they had no problems matching the intensity levels of their compilation mates in closing the first side.. Norway's Merciless open up side 2 with some gloomy rapid fire death thrash. Then it's Unleashed with some doomy, dirty death metal ugliness. Nirvana 2002 are another obscurer outfit, they recorded at Sunlight Studios and consequently have that classic crunch to their scorching track! Chronic Decay I don't know too much about either, but they achieved the requisite levels of rawness and didn't stick round long enough to ever make a bad impression particularly.. Dismember kick out the crunching morbid jams next with some heavy Autopsy worshipping deathcrush.. Skull are the final bunch of brutalists and despite them being the label owners' band, they don't let the side down completely.. With their blend of crossover(ish) speed thrash and death metal rounding things up nicely.. 'On A Mission In Blood' indeed!

Fourteen tracks of frantically finesse free powerviolence from this oft overlooked power trio... It's Iowa's Forced Expression with their self titled 7" EP from '95 released by Reek Havoc Records. I'm guessing these guys couldn't really decide who they wanted to be most at the time: Crossed Out or Spazz? Undoubtedly marginalised by their regional isolation, nonetheless FE surely had a firm grasp on the only recently crystallised aesthetics of the powerviolence sound.. While they reveal wider sources of inspiration and more varied textures here than my simplistic summaries would imply, they definitely came off sounding more like the latterly mentioned group.. Probably because they were also a three piece who traded their vokills in a similarly amusing manner.. Maybe they did have a tendency here and there to (ape)shape their song structures in ways that are a bit too close to other powerviolence bands at times.. That's not really much of a complaint is it? It's not like they dragged it out or anything.. Only 3 of the tunes last over a minute! Downtuned raw blasting mayhem meets swinging sludge breakdowns.. They whipped themselves to the required heights with their whirlwind blasts of grind, then with fiendish timing they smacked down skull shattering anvils of heavy grooves.. Don't you wanna do the broken brained boogaloo too?

Saturday, 9 July 2011

What an absolute monster of a blast from the past we have here.. 'The North Atlantic Noise Attack' double LP compilation on Manic Ears Records from 1989. 31 tracks from 16 bands from the UK and USA. Initially conceived to be a snapshot of the '87-'88 UK scene with a similarly reflective American counterpart and as a follow up to '87's 'Digging In Water' comp on the same label.. Though according to the liner notes, the US LP didn't quite work out and ended up being, 'basically a bonus 12" to give a better value package'.. In hindsight these records have inadvertently become a fascinating indicator of how the implosion and subsequent fragmentation of the international hardcore scene had already begun.. With several of the featured bands having split by the time this came out (Heresy, Ripcord, Civilised Society? and Desecration) and the others (Napalm Death and ENT most prominently) basically struggling with either how best to utilise the media hype and/or record label interest/influence or where exactly they should establish themselves in 'opposition'.. Not forgetting the endless angst generated by the wavering uncertainties of future musical development.. Like, 'more metal? More melody? More/less dreadlocks? What about whatever the Yanks are doing?' etc. Basically it's identity crises and, 'Hey, which way now?''s all round.. Great tunes though.. So you get straight up blazing (USHC worshipping!) hardcore from Ripcord and Heresy.. More melodically minded tuneage from Visions Of Change and Jailcell Recipes.. Metallic, crusty chugging from Civilised Society? and Concrete Sox.. Primitive grinding hardcore perfection from Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror... That just leaves the crazy fast hardcore stylings of Intense Degree and cheeky 'exploding cabbagecore' of Doctor And The Crippens for the UK frisbee. On the US disc Septic Death start us off with some brooding, faintly evil sounding metallic crossover clatter.. Then its Transgression who clearly have more than a few DRI and Excel issues themselves.. No probs there! Next up it's Adversity and they also Excel at displaying some Suicidal Tendencies, maybe (at a push) until they were Beyond Possession (well they were Canadian).. Fear Itself thump us hard in the head next, having hit on the winning formula of combining Raw Power and Discharge for their smoking number.. No Fraud with the penultimate portion sounding like they dig the hell out of RKL and Ill Repute, with their hard-on for that Nardcore sound baby! Desecration blast us last, lashing out with proto powerviolence like intensity, with their ripping thrash sounding like an approximation of Infest and No Comment! Can't believe for the first year or two of owning this I used to spin the second LP on 33 and thought all the US and Canadian bands were ridiculously slow and boring.. Actually, I can totally believe that.. Rest assured it's ripped at the right speed here! If you coupled these tracks with the Peel Sessions 'Hardcore Holocaust 2' comp which I had on tape (and Disorder, Discharge, DK's and Carcass!) you pretty much have my soundtrack for 1995-96! Ah, sentimental journeys, sigh...

Monday, 4 July 2011

Let's delve into the ever inventive Japanese underground and see what we can come up with.. Here we go.. The 2003 'Vokusatsu Seisin Hatansha' LP from Tokyo's infamous 'n' innovative crasher crusties: Gloom! Compiling early recordings spanning their two EP's, 'Speed Noise Hardcore Rags' and 'Recommendation Of Perdition' from approx 1994-97.. These tracks are even rawer and rougher round the edges than the previously released versions! Presumed lost, then rediscovered at Jacky Crust War's 'Under Hair Home' (so it says here anyway).. Twenty three sizzling slices of deranged distortion, splintering into synapse stabbing shards of nerve damaging noise.. But never fear: only two of them last longer than 2 mins! Here's where the drug addled distorto dementia of Swankys and Confuse is distilled down to it's barbaric essence and injected with rabid effect into a patchwork body of stitched together Disorder, Doom and ENT influences.. Then left to run amok in the rehearsal room like an intoxicated brainless monster with a Sore Throat on a rampage. Crazed, chaotic crust punk noise! Despite all my incessant name dropping of inspirations, Gloom always retained an immediately recognisable sound of their own (de)construction throughout their time together. Ultimately becoming more than a bit influential themselves in the process. At least once the usual 'crustier than thou' hipster punks hype of their records started to do the rounds..

Here's the first stand alone, self titled EP from San Diego's singular Locust, released in 1997 on GSL Records. It was their third (vinyl) release overall.. Confession time: I had this ripped to go for a while and I've endeavoured to start this post a few times before now.. But I had to repeatedly erase my feeble efforts at composition, as I kept trying to rekindle my initial enthusiasm for their early output. I became aware listening to the tracks again, that I was succumbing to boredom and/or borderline indifference at times.. Perhaps with the constant reminder of their contemporary status as caricatures weighing heavily on my self righteous sense of perceived objectivity (yawn).. Some may find this a contentious band for inclusion here (or, indeed, anywhere!), feeling that their inevitably increasing ascendancy from this point on signalled some kind of free for all in the ensuing dilution of grind's 'authenticity'.. Just to qualify, personally speaking, anything after the first LP is kind of a snoozefest to be honest, as they'd pretty much milked their formula dry of 'surprises' by then.. But these releases are remarkable as they did mark a turning point of sorts and indeed (depending on how old you are, maybe) it was for the worse.. But I don't feel the Locust were entirely culpable or that it was as drastic a shift as some 'purists' would have you believe. Merely symptomatic of the ongoing evolution of 'extreme' hardcore at the time (remember the emo violence offshoot? discordant riffing, shrill vocals etc..) and the collision of such with an art school sensibility (as opposed to the interchangable grindcore themes of gore, porn, weed, politics or comedy) and it's tendency toward avant garde abstraction (ahem, pretension?).. Oh yeah, well what does it sound like? Well, to quote the immortal HST, 'a high pitched, chattering whine..' of garbled dissonance. Repeated swirling insectoid blasts, smothered with burbling analogue keyboard effects! Nine teeth grindingly quick tracks that should hopefully rattle a few cages along the way, one way or another!

Sunday, 3 July 2011

We've (hopefully!) had ourselves a blast with that Heresy flexi.. So now let's step back once again into the burgeoning chaos of the early to mid eighties UKHC scene.. With the band that would soon become our beloved thrash masters: Plasmid! Their red raw 'n' (d)ripping '84 bedroom demo was thankfully pressed onto vinyl with a bonus track in 2006 by Short Fuse Records. Thus preserving a while longer for us, the noise worshipping faithful, an important document of the intensity that was by then rapidly developing and already starting to overwhelm the underground scenes worldwide.. Earning themselves plenty of praise and wider recognition in the process of releasing this tape of four furious tracks into the global zine and tape trading network. They're pushing the tempos onwards and upwards to the limits of their abilities, with the casual reckless urge to extremity of youth.. But definitely still leaning towards more of an accelerated 'chaos punk' aesthetic here to my ears: e.g. Disorder or Chaos UK.. Although Steve states that, 'fast UK bands such as Discharge, Antisect, Anti-System etc' were their primary influences on one of the inserts, 'but we wanted to be faster!'. Of course.. Their anarcho punk and hardcore inspirations are present, intact and immediately audible.. Not to mention highly visible: check the photos included to confirm Reevsy's (Keith Richards-esque!) 'fully charged with a fringe' hair stylings! Also not forgetting the sheer amount of inserts included, containing artwork collaged with information and (naive, yet enthusiastic!) opinions in the (sorry) 'Crassic' style.. Sigh.. Needless to say, lotsa scans with this 'un! Don't be dissuaded by that though, please.. You don't have to read 'em all!

Friday, 1 July 2011

Ahh, beatdown hardcore.. Bunches of meat headed, high kickin' nitwits all 'pickin' up the change' and throwing it back down in the pit. This ones's for real, yo.. Gotta step up to keep your rep up, y'know? So, in that spirit and with one cynical eye on increasing my credibility on 'da street' (as I believe it's called)... Here's a 7" boot of the 25 Ta Life / Spazz split, released on blue vinyl with scratched out matrix numbers. I picked it up sometime in 2003 at a show along with a couple of other boot EP's going cheap I think.. Fronted by the nugget of unintentional comedy gold that is Rick Ta Life, 25TL are one of those bands who are so wrong they become ridiculously good when they occasionally get it right... These 2 tracks are pure audio beefcake, with Rick barking like a constipated cretin and roid raging riffs that should have you flinging the furniture around like the gleeful bully you've always wanted to be... Spazz bust out four tracks of their patented power violence madness in less than 3 1/2 mins on the other side. Saying their discography was extensive is an understatement, so you know they had plenty of time to refine their formula! Distilling the catchiest parts from grindcore, death metal and various strains of hardcore and serving them up with their wacky sense of humour.. Considering the constant harshness of their sound over the years it's surprising that they always came across as a bunch of clean cut, cuddly goofballs. As opposed to the stereotypical anti social types with any number of anger management issues.. Whatever. Just slap this on and go snap those stickboys or something...